Budget 2022-23

By: Siddharth & Veechika

Highlights of the Annual Budget

• Rs 3062.60 crore is allocated under the sports budget for the financial year 2022-23, an increase of Rs 305.58 crore over last year

• e-Passports will be rolled out in 2022-23 for convenience in overseas travel

• E-passport with the embedded chip will be rolled out

• 400 new generation 'Vande Bharat' trains to be manufactured in next 3 years

• National highways network to be expanded by 25,000km in 2022-23

• Highways expansion to cost Rs 20,000 crore in 2022-23

• India to launch the next phase of Ease of Doing Business EODB 2.0 and Ease of Living.

• Recognizing the importance of 'Nari Shakti', 3 schemes were launched to provide integrated development for women and children

• Spectrum auction will be conducted in 2022 for the rollout of 5G

• For mental health counseling, a National Tele Mental Health Program will be launched.

• Proposed to introduce Digital Rupee by RBI using blockchain technology, starting 2022-23.

• 1-Class-1-TV Channel to be implemented to provide supplementary education to children to make up for the loss of formal education due to Covid pandemic. One class, one TV channel' program of PM e-VIDYA will be expanded from 12 to 200 TV channels

• Govt to pay Rs 2.37 lakh crore towards procurement of wheat and paddy under MSP operations

• Rs 48, 000 crores is allotted for PM Awas Yojana. Rs 60,000 cr allocated to provide tap water connections to 3.8 crore households in 2022-23

• Losses from the sale of virtual digital assets cannot be offset against other income

• Income from virtual digital assets to be taxed at 30%

• 1 per cent TDS on transfer of virtual assets above a threshold, gifts to be taxed

• Projected fiscal deficit of 6.4% of GDP in 2022/23

• India’s media and entertainment sector has long been asking for some kind of legitimacy for the gaming and related industries.

• Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her Budget speech for the financial year 2022-2023 announced the creation of an animation, visual effects, gaming, and comic (AVGC) task force. She said that the sector offers immense potential to employ youth. An AVGC promotion task force with all stakeholders will be set-up to recommend ways to realize this and build domestic capacity for serving our markets and the global demand, she announced in her speech.

• The steps announced to build domestic capacity for Animation, Visual-Effects, Gaming and Comics segment will certainly help enhance capabilities, enabling the Country to compete more effectively at a global stage. An extension in the credit line guarantee scheme is also a welcome move, which will provide some much-needed relief to the relevant sectors which were impacted due to the pandemic